At least 5 people confirmed dead as teams hunt for survivors, but toll could rise as water recedes

Published 5:30 am, Tuesday, September 16, 2008

North Houston residents leave a FEMA distribution hub on Imperial Valley and Greens on Monday with water, ice and meals.

North Houston residents leave a FEMA distribution hub on Imperial Valley and Greens on Monday with water, ice and meals.

Photo: MAYRA BELTRÁN, CHRONICLE

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Curious spectators walk along the tumbled stones, twisted steel and shattered lumber left behind at the site of what once was Murdoch's gift shop along Seawall Boulevard in Galveston.

Curious spectators walk along the tumbled stones, twisted steel and shattered lumber left behind at the site of what once was Murdoch's gift shop along Seawall Boulevard in Galveston.

Photo: BRETT COOMER, CHRONICLE

Searchers fear more grim discoveries in Galveston

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GALVESTON — As the search for human survivors -- and the dead -- continued amid grueling conditions today, animal welfare volunteers have launched an effort to also help injured wild animals and family pets that were left behind in the mass evacuation as Hurricane Ike approached.

About 50 Humane Society volunteers from around the United States gathered in Galveston over the weekend to begin setting up an animal rescue operation.

About 1,000 animals - ranging from baby squirrels and pelicans to family pets - have been gathered in the Houston area, said Meera Nandlal, a spokeswoman from the Houston SPCA, which also sent 3,000 crates to Galveston to help with the effort.

The increasingly urgent effort to find any human survivors who still may be out there continued, meanwhile, as search-and-rescue teams dealt with dark and filthy water, the storm's last tangible remnant, while combing Galveston Island and other coastal communities hit hardest by an overwhelming storm surge.

The hope was for more survivors — a hope rewarded more than once Monday. The fear was that grimmer discoveries awaited.

In this ruined city, reduced to such an unlivable state that its mayor wants all remaining residents gone, searchers made their way through 90 percent of the inundated neighborhoods. So far they have confirmed two dead, with four others undetermined. Thousands of homes have yet to be reached.

Galveston Mayor Lyda Ann Thomas warned Monday that her city is not fit for habitation for the foreseeable future. Residents who evacuated are not being allowed back.

"There is nothing to come here for right now," Thomas said. "Please leave. I am asking people to leave."

Meanwhile, the hunt for survivors goes on. Searchers have accounted for 1,500 thus far in a house-to-house operation.

The death toll is expected to rise as the waters recede and searchers are able to cover more areas, said city officials, who brought in a refrigerated mobile morgue.

To the east, teams on airboats arrived on Bolivar Peninsula for the first time. They rescued two people and their pets from a home in Crystal Beach — survivors who drew the ire of Gov. Rick Perry, who called them "knuckleheads" for not evacuating — and also reached High Island, where approximately 120 people rode out the storm. Most of the High Island residents chose to remain, though they welcomed the food and water that Texas Parks and Wildlife "strike teams" brought with them.

One of the survivors found by a search team had suffered an estimated 1,000 mosquito bites and was flown to a hospital on the mainland, city spokeswoman Alicia Cahill said.

Eleven people were taken out of the Flagship Hotel, which was built on piers in front of the city's protective Seawall, she said. Police today were ordering the building closed because of problems with the piers.

City officials are still discussing whether to force people off the island. City Manager Steve LeBlanc said 15,000 to 20,000 residents remained Monday out of a population of about 60,000. About 3,000 are trying to get off the island, he said.

The scale of devastation pointed to an almost unimaginable cleanup ahead. Several inches of reeking mud caked the trolley lines of The Strand. Shutters and screen doors littered the streets. Some million-dollar beach homes lay in heaps of lumber and concrete, while others stayed aloft on 10-foot pilings. There was no way to get into many of the homes left standing: Their stairs had been washed away.

FM 3005 was closed along the island's western shore, where 4 to 6 inches of hard-packed sand turned the pavement into an extended beach, the asphalt crumbled away into new-formed tidal pools, and loose cattle roamed the roadway. Bulldozers plowed the wet sand into towering banks along the edge.

Ambulances at the ready

All of Galveston looks like an empty set from a disaster movie, or perhaps a smelly ghost town. Nearly 150 structures have collapsed across the island from Ike's assault, Cahill said, and countless more will have to be demolished.

Life centers now around PODs, short for points of distribution, where remaining residents can pick up free ice and bottled water, or at the pockets of beehive-like activity around the University of Texas Medical Branch or other staging areas for first responders, where they meet, coordinate and assign tasks to one another.

At UTMB's emergency room, ambulances from around the country — Indiana, California, Iowa — sit ready to ferry out people who come to the ER seeking treatment.

"We have been busy, taking people off the island," said Mike Moore, an EMS technician from Southern California. "There has been a steady stream of people coming in with run-of-the-mill injuries, but to get them off the island takes a lot of effort when you need to go to San Antonio or somewhere as far as that."

2,000 evacuated Sunday

Away from the staging areas and the PODs are residents who chose to face Ike as it hammered with island with 115-mph winds and a tidal surge unusually powerful for a Category 2 storm.

"I lost everything," lamented Joe Mendoza, sitting shirtless on a chair outside his muddy garage. A soaked mattress and other furniture was out on the front and side lawns.

Mendoza, 57, has lived his whole life in Galveston. He stayed because he was considered a critical worker: a heavy equipment operator for the city. His story was similar to others who stayed because they or their parents stayed during Carla, a Category 5 storm, or because they never believed that Ike, considered puny by comparison to Carla, would pack such a wallop.

As recovery efforts got under way, thousands of people who stayed through the storm finally boarded the evacuation buses they missed the first time around.

On Monday morning, a line of people waited for buses at Galveston's Ball High School, where state and federal emergency workers staged rescue and recovery efforts. At 11 a.m., four charter buses pulled out of the parking lot and several more queued up to take their place.

National Guard soldiers said they had evacuated almost 2,000 people Sunday and were still sending bus loads on to shelters in Austin and San Antonio on Monday. Without power and with water and sanitary conditions deteriorating, many people who weathered the storm intact were anxious to take the mayor's advice and get off the island.

Genny Ponce, 61, caught a bus headed for San Antonio, along with her son, her best friend and her friend's daughter. Ponce sought refuge in a neighbor's upstairs apartment when floodwaters filled her house the night of the storm. It rose to 6 feet, destroying her home and flooding her car.

Ponce's friend is diabetic, and her daughter has epilepsy. Dirty and desperate, they tried calling for help Sunday morning, but couldn't get a cell phone signal.

Monday was the first day they were able to reach police, who brought them to the high school for evacuation.

"We can't survive two or three weeks without water and power," Ponce said.

Some still staying put

The elderly residents of two assisted living facilities who refused to evacuate during the storm were forced out Monday when the Galveston Housing Authority condemned their building, citing unsafe living conditions. Many of the residents insisted they still wanted to stay.

Other residents continued to camp in their homes, visiting the city's two public supply distribution centers for ice, water and government meals-ready-to-eat.

They lined up in cars and ATVs, on bicycles and on foot to carry the rations home.

Robert Leslie Graham filled a large Tupperware bin with two bags of ice, a case of water bottles, and meals. He balanced the bin on his bicycle handlebars and brought them home for his girlfriend, her three children, and the janitor at his apartment complex.

The janitor let Graham and his family stay in a vacant upstairs apartment when his downstairs unit filled with water early Saturday morning.

"It was up to here," Graham said, pointing to his neck, tattooed with his mother's name: Earline. She lives in Chicago, but Graham hasn't been able to reach her since the storm to tell her he's OK.